Jason Chu

Jason Chu

Hello, and thank you for visiting my website*! Check out my latest work on my 500px site, or take a look at my Facebook page if you are interested in wedding or event photography.

A brief background - I was born and raised in southern California, and went to school there until I completed my high school education. I then attended the University of California at Berkeley, where I received my Bachelors degree in physics and astrophysics. Upon graduating, I moved to Hawaii to study in the graduate program at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy and earned my Master's degree. I am now working towards my PhD studying infrared luminous galaxies in the COSMOS field.

My interest in photography and my (future) profession in astronomy started at roughly the same time, while I was still in college. There are many similarities between the two fields, since both require the recording of light, or photons, using electronic detectors. However the only difference between astronomy and photography is that in astronomy the exposure times can be very long (up to 10s of hours), and the telescope is always focused at infinity! I began using my first digital SLR camera right after graduation, and since then my photographic interests have grown tremendously. I have always been fascinated with all sorts of digital photographic techniques. I first started exploring panoramic images, even on my 'point and shoot' camera back then, and I still enjoy using that technique. I also enjoy taking night and/or long exposure photographs to reveal phenomena not readily visible to the human eye. In this realm, I've also devoted a lot of time into my time-lapse photography, which is a technique that reveals processes and motion that would normally appear too subtle to the human eye (e.g., the motion of the sun and stars in the sky). One of my current projects is to create star trail images and time-lapse movies from every opportunity I have when I observe at Mauna kea Observatory. Finally my most recent explorations include the application of high dynamic range (HDR) photography and infrared photography. However regardless of what technique I use, my overarching philosophy is that my photos represent the places I see rather than the places I've been to. Although my favorite genre in photography is by far landscapes, I also do portraits and wedding photography on the side. If you are in the Honolulu area and are interested in my services, please contact me.

I hope you enjoy my photographs as you browse my collections!

*I am still in the process of putting my entire collection online, so stay tuned!